Strengthening society through viable independent schools

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has succinctly and pointedly
expressed the deeply rooted, permanently engrained significance of education to
the Jewish people.

In his collection of essays, From Optimism to
Hope, he wrote: “Long ago the Jewish people came to the conclusion that to
defend a country you need an army. But to defend a civilization you need
schools. The single most important social institution is the place where we
hand on our values to the next generation – where we tell our children where
we’ve come from, what ideals we fought for, and what we learned on the way.
Schools are where we make children our partners in the long and open-ended task
of making a more gracious world.”

Making our schools affordable to all families who
seek a Jewish education for their children has been – and is – the single
motivating force driving all of GAJE’s efforts.

Moreover, and especially, GAJE is determined to demonstrate
through the legal system that since the permanent viability of Jewish
schools – and of other independent, publicly monitored, denominational schools too
– is vital to the continued future of the smaller communities served by these
schools, the viability of these schools is also vital to the continued future
of Canada’s thriving multicultural, multi-religious, tolerant society.

Thus, a public educational system that is also committed
to helping ensure the permanent viability of the smaller communities’ schools will
also help enhance and strengthen the overall educational system as well as society
itself.